The southeast strategic direction and the importance of the Danube region has been present in the German political thinking for centuries. This thanks not only to the pass of the River Danube in Southern Germany, but also to the vacuum of power in the area in the past and the presence of German ethnic groups. Due to the changing German interests in Southeast Europe, today the Danube Strategy of the European Union could define a new policy which base not only on state interests but on the determinate role of NGOs and ’bottom-up’ initiations. According to the ’bottom-up’ principle – the idea of European Commission – there are many proposals which come from the local players.